Bibliography
Apr. 26th, 2011 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyA Mercy – Toni Morrison
Given that Toni Morrison is going to be speaking at our graduation ceremony, I thought I'd sit down and read through one of her novels. This one is staged at the end of the seventeenth century and negotiates the subject of slavery, identity, gender and sundry in this period. The book is divided into about seven or eight chapters, telling various aspects of the same story from alternative characters' viewpoints. The reader pieces together the overall story of the events at a small farm in the north of America over a number of years, beginning with the farmer Jacob's importation of a wife for himself and closing at the aftermath of Jacob's death from plague and his widow's near-death from the same illness.
The fundamental theme Morrison is working with here is the pernicious evil that slavery causes, except there are certain valences in her treatment here that didn't appear in Beloved. There are categories of Free Blacks, slaves, indentured servants, American Indian servant/slaves... the social system is all a bit more complicated and yet at the same time more aware of its own need to keep within its strictly enforced boundaries. Each character is placed in a very different set of social constraints and positionality, which means each segment really speaks from a different position of oppression and difficulty. Even Jacob's voice, as the white patriarch, is constrained by his need to work with Southern traders and the disgust he feels at their treatment of their slaves.
It's only a short book, but an interestingly painted one that gives a good sense of the spread of issues that people lived in this period. The asynchronous story telling, jumping hither and thither, is a Morrison-esque trope, but it's not quite... as effective here as it has been before. I don't know. I didn't find this as rewarding as I have found other works by Morrison - but then I look at the Amazon.com page, and note a trend of calling this "more accessible" than some of her other writing. That's as may be - but I think I preferred reading her more intellectually challenging novels.
A Pelican at Blandings - P. G. Wodehouse
Another Blandings novel, for the lightness. I have to say that I felt Wodehouse spotted some of his previous critics going 'oh, he's going to use that trope again, oh dear' and basically decided to knock their feet out from under them. For instance, a painting that is supposed to get stolen doesn't get stolen, which decision leads to a marriage proposal instead. The imposter who is snuck into the castle is not snuck in by Galahad, but by the ghastly Earl of Dunstable (albeit unwittingly and without the Earl's knowledge that he is smuggling in an imposter, but that's by the by). Plus there turns out to be another imposter who has been introduced by Lady Constance herself, the woman most desirous that imposters should cease to visit her familial home.
On the plus side, the Empress of Blandings is not required to move on this occasion, which I have to say is a blessing.
This felt a little darker than previous novels in the series, but in quite a knowing, playing on its own tropes kind of way - it still works on the same basic premises, and naturally there is a love plot in there somewhere, but it feels rather as if Wodehouse is enjoying himself and cocking a snook at his critics at the same time.
This leaves me in a somewhat tricky position, Wodehouse-wise. There is one more Blandings book, titled Sunset at Blandings, that Wodehouse was working on literally up to his death. It remains unfinished, but it has been published in that form (I gather with the ending unwritten but Wodehouse's notes on what the ending should be included). So I don't know whether to read that and leave myself with the sadness of an incomplete book, or whether to switch Wodehouse gears and move to Jeeves. Hmmmm. And hmmmm once more.
Given that Toni Morrison is going to be speaking at our graduation ceremony, I thought I'd sit down and read through one of her novels. This one is staged at the end of the seventeenth century and negotiates the subject of slavery, identity, gender and sundry in this period. The book is divided into about seven or eight chapters, telling various aspects of the same story from alternative characters' viewpoints. The reader pieces together the overall story of the events at a small farm in the north of America over a number of years, beginning with the farmer Jacob's importation of a wife for himself and closing at the aftermath of Jacob's death from plague and his widow's near-death from the same illness.
The fundamental theme Morrison is working with here is the pernicious evil that slavery causes, except there are certain valences in her treatment here that didn't appear in Beloved. There are categories of Free Blacks, slaves, indentured servants, American Indian servant/slaves... the social system is all a bit more complicated and yet at the same time more aware of its own need to keep within its strictly enforced boundaries. Each character is placed in a very different set of social constraints and positionality, which means each segment really speaks from a different position of oppression and difficulty. Even Jacob's voice, as the white patriarch, is constrained by his need to work with Southern traders and the disgust he feels at their treatment of their slaves.
It's only a short book, but an interestingly painted one that gives a good sense of the spread of issues that people lived in this period. The asynchronous story telling, jumping hither and thither, is a Morrison-esque trope, but it's not quite... as effective here as it has been before. I don't know. I didn't find this as rewarding as I have found other works by Morrison - but then I look at the Amazon.com page, and note a trend of calling this "more accessible" than some of her other writing. That's as may be - but I think I preferred reading her more intellectually challenging novels.
A Pelican at Blandings - P. G. Wodehouse
Another Blandings novel, for the lightness. I have to say that I felt Wodehouse spotted some of his previous critics going 'oh, he's going to use that trope again, oh dear' and basically decided to knock their feet out from under them. For instance, a painting that is supposed to get stolen doesn't get stolen, which decision leads to a marriage proposal instead. The imposter who is snuck into the castle is not snuck in by Galahad, but by the ghastly Earl of Dunstable (albeit unwittingly and without the Earl's knowledge that he is smuggling in an imposter, but that's by the by). Plus there turns out to be another imposter who has been introduced by Lady Constance herself, the woman most desirous that imposters should cease to visit her familial home.
On the plus side, the Empress of Blandings is not required to move on this occasion, which I have to say is a blessing.
This felt a little darker than previous novels in the series, but in quite a knowing, playing on its own tropes kind of way - it still works on the same basic premises, and naturally there is a love plot in there somewhere, but it feels rather as if Wodehouse is enjoying himself and cocking a snook at his critics at the same time.
This leaves me in a somewhat tricky position, Wodehouse-wise. There is one more Blandings book, titled Sunset at Blandings, that Wodehouse was working on literally up to his death. It remains unfinished, but it has been published in that form (I gather with the ending unwritten but Wodehouse's notes on what the ending should be included). So I don't know whether to read that and leave myself with the sadness of an incomplete book, or whether to switch Wodehouse gears and move to Jeeves. Hmmmm. And hmmmm once more.
